Posterized: Sean Penn as director
by Nathaniel R
Former movie star Sean Penn celebrated his 61st birthday just two days ago and now welcomes his sixth directorial effort, Flag Day, into US theaters. Though Penn's name was once intoned with a kind of reverence by fellow actors and critics his film career has been curiously uneventful for a decade now (with his supporting role in The Tree of Life, 2011, his last real prestigious success... and mostly by association at that). One suspects the fading film career is more from a shift in his own interest and priorities given his political activism than a lack of opportunities but it's always hard to know given the fickle nature of Hollywood and stardom in general.
Can Flag Day serve as a kind of jumpstart for a comeback in the next few years? Does he even want that? He has two films (as an actor) in preproduction now, a drama with Dakota Johnson and a drama with Tye Sheridan. How many of his six directorial efforts have you seen? The posters are after the jump...